So I just discover that I’m the face #272,080,205 in the ocean of 1,278,842,363 faces map of facebook. It’s quite insane to realise how facebook has become so popular in today life. I, myself find facebook very addictive. Just need internet and a device to connect then you are out there, showing off who you are or create a different identity for yourself.  If people public their page then to get to know them never be that easy, go through their timeline, photos, friend list, notes, you instantly develop your first impression for them; you can even check out their favourite movies, singers, books, where they have been…etc. It’s in a way very interesting that facebook brings people together just within a few clicks.

However, it’s just as easy to get yourself into troubles with what you think is interesting. Identity thieves, hackers, cyber bully and all sort of crazy things could happen just base on the information you put on facebook.

How much info is safe?

In this  week reading, Mr.Manovich first explains the term “database” in computer science as a structured collection of data. The data stored in a database is anything but a simple collection of items. There are different types of databases such as hierarchical, network, relational, and object-oriented; use different models to organize data.

He then addresses database as a cultural form of its own, a new symbolic form of a computer science age. The world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of texts, images, and other data records; it’s only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database.

Manovich the uses the CD-ROM as an example to exemplify the dominance of database forms in new media. The identity of a CD-ROM as a storage media is projected onto another place, becomes a cultural form of its own. Multimedia works that have “cultural” content appear particularly to favor the database form.

He also mentions the Web pages are computer files that can always be edited, which makes Web sites a open resource as they always grow. New links, new contents are being added. As the result, Web comes a collection, not a story since new elements are being added over time.